Adulterated  Ghee Making Unit Detected by Berhampur Police.

Odishabarta

Berhampur(09/11/2023): A duplicate ghee manufacturing unit was busted at Badabazaar in Ganjam district on Thursday. The owner of the unit was arrested in this connection. The duplicate ghee was being prepared in the name of Maa Durga brand. Huge quantity of duplicate ghee was seized from the spot.

In connection Bada Bazar Police registered a case against the accused Epari Rajeswar Patra (53) ( arrested)  S/O-Epari Ankudu Patra of  Housing Board Colony, House No-227, PS-Gosani Nuagaon, Berahampur vide case No-441 Dt 09.11.2023 at 12.30 a.m. U/S-120-B/272/273/420 IPC/ Sec-51/52/53/56/57/59/63 of Food Safety & Standards Act-2006.

Police said,  Epari Rajeswar Patra along with his brother  and few others were manufacturing SRI MAA DURGA Ghee by using different waste materials such as burnt Oil, Burnt Mobil, Low grade Palm Oil, Low garde Palmolin Oil,  by adding dangerous Chemicals etc. They were using sophisticated automatic packaging machines to pack the Ghee packets.  The Ghee Packets were having no trade licence mark, no manufacture date, no expiry date etc. The owner of company had been selling those Ghee in many parts of state and out of state targeting poor, illiterate people who can not read English and they are reportedly consuming the non-edible Ghee which is very dangerous and injurious to human health. The accused persons were mostly sending the Ghee to interior areas to cheat poor people. The trade Licence is also expired and not renewed.  The permission of the company is for selling of Edible Oil and Ghee as per Municipality Licence which is also expired. But the company has been manufacturing Duplicate Ghee for more than 2 years.

Notably,In year 2021 during January the accused E. Rajeswar Patra was also earlier arrested and forwarded to Court against case No- case no. 26 dt. 27.01.2021 u/s-272/273/420 IPC r/w sec-51/52/53/56/57/59/63 of Food Safety and Standards Act/ 16 of Prevention of Food Adulteration Act 2006 and Sec. 103/104 of Trademarks Act 1999

 On the allegation of packaging of substandard quality of Ghee in the brand name of “DURGA” and selling the same to the consumers for illegal gain.

During the search they found 07 Cartoons of such duplicate adulterated Durga brand Ghee (Total 140 Liters), 10 gunny bags of packing materials i.e. Printed Rolls of Durga Labels have been seized from the manufacturing unit.